THE CHALLENGE
Managing payments in-house posed risks to the all-important creator experience
Gigapay's payment flows are some of the most complex around, with the platform processing significant payout volumes for influencers and creators in multiple markets across Europe. And with high-profile customers like Memmo, Adrecord, and Inzpire it goes without saying that its payment operations need to be efficient and reliable at all times. Gigapay's critical payment and treasury operations include:
- Paying out funds to creators
- Reconciling incoming payments from customers
- Monitoring accounts across multiple banks
As Gigapay scaled its business and expanded to new markets, the operational overhead of handling bank payments in-house quickly became unmanageable. Incoming payments had to be monitored and reconciled manually before a payout could be issued. This was a particular headache since payout speed is essential to Gigapay's customer experience – it required a lot of time-sensitive manual work to prevent delays and process payouts as quickly as possible.
With large volumes moving through the Gigapay platform on a daily basis, the team lacked an aggregation layer that would let them easily track cash balances across multiple banks. The only way for the finance team to manage the company's cash was to log into multiple bank portals successively and export the data to a centralised spreadsheet.
The Gigapay team could see this setup wasn't aligned with their platform's own scalable architecture and that it would hold them back as the business grew. Gustav and team initially considered building their own custom integrations to select European banks using the SFTP and EBICS bank protocols, but the project plan quickly ballooned in size. It would have required a big chunk of engineering resources to be diverted away from the company's core product.
THE SOLUTION
Automated monitoring, streamlined payouts, and full cash visibility across Europe
After discussions with several potential partners, Gigapay partnered with Atlar to monitor incoming payments in real time via webhooks, automate creator payouts, and gain a comprehensive overview of its cash balances at multiple banks. The Gigapay team went from managing payments in-house to fully integrating Atlar and automating its operations in two short weeks.
With close to 100% of Gigapay's payout flows now automated, the team no longer needs to be constantly on the lookout for incoming payments and can focus on higher-value work that helps the business grow. And with all of Gigapay's bank data now consolidated and available in one central place, the finance team can more easily track liquidity and simplify its reporting. This lets team members focus on more strategic work instead of spending their time in legacy bank interfaces.
THE RESULT
Off-the-shelf bank connectivity helped the team launch new markets faster
Crucially, partnering with Atlar also enabled Gigapay to more easily support cross-border payments – facilitating faster European expansion. Atlar had pre-built connections to Gigapay’s chosen banking partners for cross-border payments, ready and waiting for the team to use. This shortened the time taken to get up and running with payments across the SEPA region from months to days.
Cost-savings and faster settlement times on cross-border payments also helped convince Gigapay to partner with Atlar for its international expansion, instead of going down the payment service provider route. Today the Gigapay team is working harder than ever on growing the business, safe in the knowledge that their payment and treasury infrastructure will always be able to match the team's ambitions.
If your team's payment and treasury processes are holding it back from higher-value work, book a demo with the Atlar team to see how our platform can help.
